BCE takeover deal put to bed for good

John Connors

December 11, 2008 10:30am

The proposed $52 billion takeover deal to privatize BCE has been declared as “terminated”. A statement from BCE Acquisition Group Inc said “Because KPMG has concluded that a required test for the solvency opinion was not met, this mutual condition to completion of the acquisition could not be, and was not, satisfied”.

Now it comes down to the $1.2 billion break-up fee that BCE is demanding payment “All closing conditions have been satisfied by BCE, other than the solvency opinion, a condition to closing that was to be satisfied by its nature at the effective time,” BCE said in a news release. “Under such circumstances, the agreement provides that the break-up fee will be owed to BCE by the purchaser.” More info from CBC here. Update: Bell has now been “re-energiezed” again…